268 
Dwight, The Philadelphia Vireo. 
TAuk 
L July 
Besides the song, this Vireo has the scolding note already 
mentioned. It does not resemble the corresponding complaint 
note of olivaceus , but is almost exactly like the aggressive nasal 
mya of gilvvs, which has a suggestion of the katydid about it. It 
is usually rapidly repeated five or six times or intermitted and 
continued irregularly by series of from three to eight or more. 
Males and females both make use of it, raising the feathers of the 
crown into a crest at the same time so as to look quite angry. 
This is the first sound imitated by the young birds, though usually 
rendered by them one note at a time and in a rather ‘ scrapey ’ 
voice, while the approach of the food-laden parent will excite a 
chatter, marked chiefly by its incoherent rapidity. 
The other regular notes of the adults are the indescribable soft 
clickings and squeakings of which I have already spoken, a mine 
of low music intended as household gossip when the loud song is 
laid aside. These, as well as the scolding notes, are also inter- 
spersed in the intervals of the soliloquized song in which the 
male indulges when roving at will. 
It is evident that but one brood is raised in a season. I have 
seen young birds as early as July 7, comical little chaps largely 
bare skin and the promise of a tail. At this tender age they are 
unwilling to essay flight except when urged by anxious parents 
to make a clumsy, flying leap from one twig to another, but they 
are knowing enough to keep quiet when they hear a crashing in 
the bushes, and as they become older they lose no time in moving 
quickly away. I have found them in alder thickets or along 
some of the bushy cattle paths which end abruptly at steep walls 
of rock or lose themselves in small clearings. In fact I never 
could tell when or where I might run across the birds, young or 
old, but during the latter part of July, when the moult is in 
progress, it is almost impossible to find them anywhere. I asso- 
ciate them, however, with the alder patches where they wander 
loudly singing in early summer, softly warbling in midsummer, 
and becoming silent long before the chill of autumn has come. It 
could be said that the Philadelphia Vireo might well emulate his 
indefatigable relation, the Red-eye, whose song period extends day 
in and day out well into the fall, but our little friend undoubtedly 
knows well what he is about or he would not have successfully 
